


i've had enough of talking politely

by lavenderseaslug



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:01:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22728805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderseaslug/pseuds/lavenderseaslug
Summary: “Roman, what do you think is going on here?” The candles, the soft music, the dim lighting. Surrounded by couples, by people falling in love.“A romantic dinner for two? The matronly lawyer attempts to seduce the debonair heir to the throne?” He spins his fork between his fingers. She raises an eyebrow. “The hot as fuck lawyer deigns to spend time with the doofy monkey boy?” he offers, and she can’t resist the smile that threatens to quirk her lips.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Comments: 12
Kudos: 135





	i've had enough of talking politely

**Author's Note:**

> sliding in under the wire. happy valentine's day.

There’s a bear sitting on her desk, a rose pinned between its paws. It’s hideous. And she knows immediately who it’s from. 

She flicks her wrist, looks down at her watch. February 14th. When was the last time that date meant anything to her? Probably even before Baird died. Neither of them were ever very insistent on the romantic sorts of things that often came along with marriage. Maybe there would be a card on the kitchen table, Baird’s name hastily signed underneath a pre-printed message. Once he had flowers sent to the office, which turned out to be a mistake. A giant bouquet of red roses like a neon sign, signalling to every misogynist within the walls of Waystar Royco that she was a weak-willed woman who only cared about hearts and love and flowers. 

They ended up in the trash before the day was over. 

The card on the bear just says “Have a ~~beary~~ Gerri happy Valentine’s Day,” and a little R scribbled beneath the hastily edited message. That little shit. She hates that she’s smiling. Is glad that her back is at least turned away from the glass walls, that no one might mistake her expression for fondness, that no one can see her expression at all. 

The bear is soft and light and her nails disappear into its pink fur when she picks it up. At least it doesn’t play music. She puts it next to her computer, turns its face away - she wouldn’t put it past Roman to sneak a tiny camera into a godforsaken Valentine’s Day present. Her phone buzzes as she sits down, a text from Roman on the screen. 

_Do you like it?_

She wonders how he knows, gives a sidelong look to the bear again, considers putting it in one of her desk drawers. But when she looks up, looks out at the office, she sees Roman striding towards her from the elevators, a ridiculous little wiggle of his fingers that’s supposed to be a wave. She holds up her middle finger in response, which just makes his face split into a grin. 

He doesn’t even knock on the door, just pushes it open, leans against the doorframe, all awkward limbs and limp hair. “I just saw the pink and thought of you,” he says, his tone dancing along the line between mocking and sincere, the one that never lets her know what to think. 

“How sweet,” she says flatly. “You shouldn’t have.” Her fingers are typing in her username and password, her eyes still on Roman, not looking at her screen. “Did you need something?” 

“Just thought I’d have, you know, a little of the old face time. The F2F, the touchbase. Lingo, words, business. Whatever the fuck.” He plops onto her couch, leans back, arms across the cushions, like he owns the place. Which, she supposes, he sort of does. Not for the first time does she question her decision to get into bed, both metaphorical and actual, with the agent of chaos sitting in front of her. 

“We have dinner on the schedule for later,” she reminds him, and his face falters a little, but her computer dings, a new email in her inbox, and her attention slides away. Besides, how much can he really need to see her in one day. It’s one thing to have late night phone calls with heavy panting, and impromptu visits that end with Roman on the floor of her bathroom, dick in his hand, and it’s another thing altogether to have him go out of his way to see her twice, when he wasn’t even supposed to be in the building at all today. 

She might get the idea that he likes her. 

She might have to get used to the idea that she doesn’t exactly hate him anymore. 

“Pick you up at seven?” Roman’s voice pulls her away from Karolina’s email, her eyes moving back to him, and he looks jumpy, on edge, fingers gripping the edge of the couch, pushing himself up, holding himself down, always a contradiction. 

“Or we meet there?” There’s nothing special about this dinner, just the most convenient time to talk strategy, with the buzz of other diners to shield their conversation, away from the eyes and ears of any would-be tattletales at Waystar Royco. And she knows that Roman gets irritable, distracted, when he hasn’t eaten, can’t imagine having to talk about next moves with him when all he can think about is steak or mashed potatoes. There was that one time when he went on an excessive tangent about jalapeno poppers that led them to the bar at a TGIFridays at ten o’clock on a Thursday night.

“Okay, we’ll just...fucking...meet there.” He runs a hand through his hair, brushing the strands back from his face. If he’s upset, it only shows on his face for a moment, and then the look of a pompous boy prince is back. “Glad you like the bear,” he says, a wink of his eye, like nothing’s ever bothered him in the whole worried, and he bounds out the door, a cannonball ricocheted from her office, off to cause destruction somewhere else, no doubt.

-

Seven o’clock comes earlier than expected, the day flying by between meetings and phone calls and small fires that need to be stamped out. She’s late leaving the office, doesn’t even think to change out of her skirt suit, wishes she’d brought more comfortable shoes. Thinks that if the table cloth reaches the floor, she might slide them off during the meal. 

She imagines prodding Roman’s shin with her toes, can just imagine the way his eyebrows would fly up into his hairline, the way his shock would morph into glee. There’s just something very _fun_ about Roman Roy, about the way he exists in her life. And that’s not something she’s had much of, in her life. 

Her car takes her to a small Italian restaurant, tucked away in the East Village, small tables and candles, low lights. She tells the hostess who she’s there to meet, her watch telling her she’s running twenty minutes late, is certain Roman’s devoured the bread basket by now. 

His back is to them as she approaches, thanks the waitress, and walks around him to her chair, flicks the napkin off the table with a practiced gesture before settling into her seat. 

“If you’d let me pick you up, you’d have been on time,” he says. “Thought you might stand me up, leave me like a fucking chump to sit on my own thumb.”

“How would that be different from any other day of the week?” she asks, looking at the menu, not looking at the man across from her, running a hand through her hair, feeling slightly underdressed for the restaurant, feeling slightly out of place amongst the couples dining together, heads bowed. She’s almost certain there will be at least one proposal while they’re eating dinner, wouldn’t be surprised if there’s two or three. 

Hell, Roman might even propose again, for all that she knows. Never quite sure what’s going to come out of his mouth. 

“I thought we’d do something special, you know, for this Hallmark fucking holiday that’s being shoved down our throats today? You could sit on my thumb. Maybe I’d sit on your thumb. Who knows?” There’s a strand of earnestness in his tone, something she’s not quite sure what to do with. 

“How about no one sits on anyone’s thumb and we go from there?” She picks up the list of wine specials, contemplates asking Roman if he wants to go in on the prix fixe menu for couples, the chance to try more entrees, to have wine pairings she doesn’t have to think about. 

And then it hits her, like a ton of bricks, like a bouquet of roses thrown into the trash, a giant fucking pink teddy bear in the middle of the room. 

“Roman, what do you think is going on here?” The candles, the soft music, the dim lighting. Surrounded by couples, by people falling in love.

“A romantic dinner for two? The matronly lawyer attempts to seduce the debonair heir to the throne?” He spins his fork between his fingers. She raises an eyebrow. “The hot as fuck lawyer deigns to spend time with the doofy monkey boy?” he offers, and she can’t resist the smile that threatens to quirk her lips. 

“We’re meeting to talk about the Cutler deal,” she prompts, voice going up slightly, trying to get on an even footing with him. Sometimes so easy to feel like they are having two different conversations, like they are talking at cross purposes. 

“Cutler. Cut-Cut-Cut-Cut-Cutler.” His eyes dart around the restaurant, not looking at her, not meeting her eyes. “The Cutler deal. Which one is that again?” He’s lying now, because they’ve had no less than ten meetings about it. Lunches, late night visits, spare moments caught together, where she hisses suggestions at him to take to his father, to take to the board. 

She slants her eyes at him. “It’s the deal I’ve given many precious moments of my life to making possible for you to negotiate. Am I wasting my time on you, Roman?” She sees his eyes go wide for a moment before he morphs back into the slick rich kid that never earned her attention.

“Always business, never pleasure,” he grouses as the waiter shows up, smile pasted on his face. 

“Give us a moment, please,” Gerri says, because there’s a chance she won’t want to order anything, that she won’t want to have a meal, across from this version of Roman. The smile disappears as quickly as the waiter does, leaving them alone.

“Do you think I do this for pleasure, Roman? That I use what spare time I have trying to make you into something more than a dim-witted idling fuckwit?” He shifts in his chair and she leans forward, can see the vein pulsing in his forehead, knows he’s either angry or turned on or some combination of both. Her hand fists into the tablecloth slightly (not long enough to hide bare feet, after all) and she stares at him, willing their eyes to meet.

He gives in, he always does, and his dark eyes meet hers, moving back and forth like he’s scanning for her face.

“I think there’s the barest chance you might actually become something other than an addled cokehead like your brother or a self-righteous asshole like your sister. If you could think about something other than your _pleasure_ for five minutes…” She trails off. Conversations like this have two endings: either she leaves Roman in lurch, too frustrated to tolerate his petulance, or he comes on her bathroom tile, the decision made to save real business talk for another time. 

He came here tonight with pleasure in mind, because somewhere along the way, his addled brain decided he wanted to spend Valentine’s Day with her and that it might actually _mean_ something. 

If she thinks about it, really thinks about it, she knows that there’s more to whatever it is between them, more than just breathless phone calls and squelching hand movements. That there are quiet moments when he’s just _looking_ at her.

A responsible adult might tell him no, might squash the whole thing here and now before it goes too far, before he’s sliced off his cock and served it to her for dinner, before he’s sacrificed himself to save her, before she looks foolish, an old woman with a man child she’s known his entire life.

Sometimes, though, just every once in a while, she tires of being responsible, and she wants to give into her _own_ pleasure.

“Let’s go,” she says, already standing, because she knows he’ll follow. His chair is pushed back before she can even grab her purse. 

They take a taxi to her apartment, and they don’t say a word. He’s already too close, too riled, and she doesn’t want to pay an extra cleaning fee to get semen off the backseat of a cab. 

His face is pressed against the window, looking at the lights flashing past, windows lit up in reds and pinks, and he looks so boyish, an easiness to his features that isn’t always there.

They stand too close in the elevator, she can feel his breath against her neck, the twitch of his fingers against her back, because he never can just sit still. She feels a thrumming building in the pit of her stomach, the anticipation of what’s next, what’s waiting behind her closed door.

They’ve touched each other, but just a little, Roman always tentative and cautious, like he’s testing the waters. She wonders when she became his safe place. 

Her apartment is clean, stark, not well-lived in, but she lives in other places. “Now,” she says, with the lock in place, facing Roman. “What did you think was going to happen tonight?” 

“I thought I’d get to have spaghetti and meatballs that cost eighty dollars,” he says, scuffing a foot against the floor, and she knows that he’s scared to ask for what he wants, that he probably doesn’t even really know. 

She walks towards him, slipping off her shoes as she moves, giving him the barest hint of an advantage in height. He stands, awkward and lanky, in front of her, and she reaches out to straighten the collar of his shirt, can see the way his Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows.

“What about after that?” she asks, touching his face, just gently enough to make him shiver, nails just grazing the stubble appearing on his jaw. 

“I just figured you’d get pissed at me and then it would just, you know, snowball.” His shoulders are high, his eyes fixed on hers, and she can see the want there. He’s not wrong, she just moved his agenda along more quickly than he might have anticipated. 

“You are so very easy to get _pissed_ at,” she answers, using his words, tossing them back at him. When she presses her lips to his, it’s strange, new, he’s only tried to kiss her once and missed her mouth, hitting her jawline and practically fleeing out the door.

But she’s in charge now and she’s purposeful and she has a plan in mind, and her hand comes up into his hair, holds him in place, his mouth softening against hers, opening to let her tongue in. He tastes like bread, a hint of salted butter there too. She knew he’d make short work of the free food in front of him at the restaurant.

She bites at his lower lip, pulls it between her teeth, and when she lets go, there’s a stunned sort of look on his face. “Did you want to go back for your hundred dollar pasta?” she asks, knowing what the answer will be, he’s already moving towards her again, hands hitting her hips, fluttering, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to touch. 

She kisses him again, hand back against his head, firm, directive. “Imagine what you could do if you thought of something besides your cock for twenty minutes,” she says, lips brushing against his cheek, pushing her pelvis forward, thrusting slightly against him, can already feel him hardening. 

“Do you...want me to think of something else?” He’s already panting, his breath heavy, his voice strained. So little control, when he’s given the attention he craves, yearning to lap it up, to soak it all in. She threads her hand between them, grips him through his trousers, enough that he groans. 

“I don’t think you could think of something else even if it meant you got the whole company, lock, stock and barrel, right now.” She squeezes him again, once, and his head rocks forward to her shoulder. “I think you’re just a sex-obsessed little boy, a complete fuck-up who needs to come in order to think straight.” His mouth is wet against her shoulder, she can feel his teeth through the silk of her blouse. 

“A wanton slug who can’t even focus what few brain cells you have until you’ve covered everything around you in _ejaculate_.” She gets crisper with her words in these moments, her lips fully wrapping around each word, her tongue spitting them out between her teeth. 

The first time they did this - _this_ \- in person, she saw how Roman watched her, how his eyes focused on her lips, his tongue darting out to wet his own, the strangled swallow in his throat, the urge to do _something_ , and just waiting for her to let him. 

She knows how he gets, by now. How a conversation can start about anything, about what he needs to do to impress his father, how he can arrange a conversation in a board meeting that makes him look clever and Kendall look like an idiot, how to keep himself out of the crosshairs, and it can end with his face red and her skirt stained. 

When he was in Florida, in training, it was confined, kept to phones, kept separate from real life, from the time they spent together. Then he came to her room and asked for it, actually said the words, veiled in sarcasm and smarm, but asked for it nonetheless. And then it turned into appearing at her apartment, to showing up in her office late at night, to any number of things that bridged whatever it is between them from some amorphous hobby she could write off as a laugh into something concrete. 

And now he wants to celebrate a holiday with her. 

She wonders if this is what love looks like through Roman’s eyes, all garbled and shrouded and hidden under layers of mind games and innuendo and sex. When he stares at her through hooded lids, she looks away, presses her mouth to the pulse point in his neck, can feel his heart pounding against her lips. 

“Bedroom,” she commands, and he knows the way because he’s been there before. He’s unbuttoning his shirt as he goes, she has to step over the discarded clothing as she follows behind, her hand on her skirt zipper. 

He’s hard, erect, turgid, as he lays on the bed, a flagpole sticking up, claiming the territory as hers. As his. As theirs. In nothing but a standard workday bra and underwear, Gerri kneels above him, her hand grasping him, sliding up and down his shaft, thumb swirling around the top of his penis, spreading the pooling liquid around. 

When she hears his grunt, she lets him go, can see how close he is, wants to get something out of this too. 

She doesn’t know if he can, if she’s honest. He’s never talked about it, really, but anyone with half a brain can see that Roman has an issue with intimacy, with sex. It’s a leap of faith when he leans over him, one hand on either side of his head, looking down at him, hair falling in a sheaf, just grazing his nose. 

He arches his neck, cranes to kiss her but she dodges the movement and he settles for sucking at her collarbone instead, teeth scraping against her skin and she wonders if he’ll leave a mark, can’t decide if she minds. One hand pushes her underwear aside, she reaches back distractedly to get them far enough down her thighs that she can kick them off. He breathes deeply, nose pressed into her, and she wonders what she smells like, to him. What he thinks of when he breathes her in. 

She lifts her hips, looks Roman in the eyes, and he doesn’t look away. It’s awkward, it’s not her best work, but she’s able to hold herself over his cock, able to slowly slide herself down his length, slow enough that it makes her eyes roll back slightly. It’s been long enough since she’s had a real dick between her legs (metaphorically and literally, she might say, if she were thinking clearly) that she wants to savor how it feels. 

But this time isn’t for slow and steady, she can tell as soon as she squeezes her inner muscles, feels Roman buck below her. He looks slightly frenetic, and she wonders when the last time he did this is - briefly wonders if he’s _ever_ done this before. He bites his lip, closes his eyes, and she can tell that he’s really trying to find a rhythm, to make it all last more than ten seconds. 

She digs her nails into his chest, pressing down, holding herself up, and the sensation is enough to make his eyes fly open again, to stare at her, to make a strangled groan in the back of his throat, and she feels him thrust again, once, twice, and then he’s done, spent. 

He lasts longer when he’s up against her bathroom door, when he’s pressed against her bedspread, when it’s anything but her. She supposes it’s mildly flattering. 

Pushing herself off him, she sits back on her heels, slides her hand between her own legs. Roman watches her, his eyes dark slits, his mouth dropping open. She’s wet enough, aroused by the power she has over him, by his enthusiasm for her. She inserts one finger, two, three, stretching, adjusting, finding the spot that feels best, thumb flicking against her clit, a steady pattern, moving faster, her hips moving back and forth, small thrusts, and she can see Roman tracking every movement. 

He pushes himself up, when there’s sweat on her brow, when she knows her cheeks are flushed, and pushes her hand aside, hands on her thighs, head bending down to suck at her, the first touch of his lips making her gasp, unexpected, wanted, _needed_. 

His bare back is wiry, the points of his spine moving as he works between her legs, his shoulders wide as he holds himself in position, quietly sucking, nipping, his tongue darting back and forth, as frantic in this as it is when he speaks. She feels like she might fall over, like she’s going to lose her balance, because it’s all so much, the surprise of it, the way he’s actually bringing her to a near frenzy. Her hand scrabbles at his shoulder, grasps him, nails digging in once more, but from the way he moans into her, she doesn’t think he minds, doesn’t think he’ll mind the bruises tomorrow either. 

She sucks air between her teeth, gazing up at her ceiling, pressing herself up enough to give Roman space to continue his work, holding herself until she can’t, until pleasure overcomes her in a wave, until she sags, her body folding over his, pulling him from underneath her, tasting herself on his lips. Swallowing it all. 

“Tomorrow, we talk about the Cutler deal,” she says, when she pulls away. She doesn’t ask him to leave, lets him decide what he’ll do. 

“That’s your idea of pillow talk?” he asks, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“I was never very good at...all of that,” she says, trailing off as she remembers the last time she said those words, the last time she admitted a weakness to another person. 

Roman doesn’t say anything, just watches as she folds herself under the covers, as she pulls her quilt up over herself, just her head visible against the pillows. “Stay or go, but don’t stare,” she says, just ready to fall asleep. Business in the morning, pleasure for tonight. 

She doesn’t know what he decides, because she’s asleep before she knows it, and he’s gone when she wakes up. 

But the bear is still sitting on her desk when she arrives the next morning.


End file.
